Month: May 2012

As if pumping isn’t degrading enough in its rawest form, here’s what it’s like to pump with a two-year-old hanging around.

Rocco yells up from the playground: MOOMMM! WHERE ARE YOU GOING, MOM? Me: I’M GOING INSIDE TO PUMP. R: CAN I COME WATCH, MOMMY? Me: SURE, YOU CAN WATCH ME PUMP. (Did I mention yet that our new neighbors were moving in yesterday?) *5 minutes later, with me being hooked up R: Why are there two boooooobs, Mommy?” Me: Could you please take your head off of the breast pump? R: Is your body making milk, Mom? Me: Yup. R: I drink milk. Me: Your milk comes from cows. R: Ha ha, no. I drink kid milk. Hey, pump me next, Mom! Pump me! PUMP MEEEEE!

During this pumping session I was also driven all over by Rocco’s cars, force fed Sophie the giraffe, and used as a human Kleenex.

[SCENE] The kids are playing quietly and Leo is napping, and the moment has seized me so I seize the moment. As soon as I sit on the toilet, Rocco shows up like a crow at your picnic.

Rocco: Hi, Mom. Me: Hi. R: Are you pooping? Me: Yes, yes I am. R: Can I be the flusher?!! [wedges himself between me, the bathtub, and the back of the toilet to get a better view] Me: *plop* R: Ooo, nice poop, Mom! Should I flush it now? [starts pushing down the handle] Me: No! Stop! I’m not done yet! R: Why, Mom? Why are you not done? Me: … Me: *plop* R: Now are you done going? Me: Not really. R: [FLUSH!] Me: Okay, I guess I am then. [begin wiping] R: [FLUSH!] HEY IT’S NOT FLUSHING! MOM IT’S NOT FLUSHING! IT WON’T FLUSH! WAAAAAAAHHHHHH! Me: Settle down, Rocco. You have to wait for it to fill up. And besides, I’m not done wiping. R: That’s a lot of TP, Mom. Me: I know. I know it is. R: Why did you put a nursing pad in the toilet, Mom? Me: That’s not a nursing pad, it’s a hemorrhoid pad. Vincenzo: Hi, Mom. Will you read this book to me? Leo: Waaaaaahhhh! Rocco: [FLUSH!]

I walked in on Leo today in his bouncy seat, staring out the window and having a very personal moment with his thumb.

I am generally grossed out by thumb sucking in general, but that was before my three-month-old baby did it. Now I can’t get enough of it! My other babies never found their thumbs (I think Vincenzo still doesn’t know he has them), and I love how every one of my kids has been his own self right from the very beginning.

When Vincenzo comes home from school he often picks up a book or magazine and just chills out for awhile, reading. I looked over at him on such a day this week and saw he must have finished all the Highlights magazines because this is what he had chosen:

Who says the public schools are failing us?

(I just looked over at Vincenzo sitting at the table…he’s reading the HBR again!)

It doesn’t look like much in these photos but it makes a huge difference IRL. You’ll have to take my word for it. But unfortunately opening up our lake view also meant opening up our view of this, which was previously shrouded by an enormous laurel:

Leo starts crying. He’s hungry but I don’t know it. I’ve been imagining what this might be like for him…

You tell someone you’re hungry, so they give you a piece of rubber to suck on. You tell them thanks but it’s not working; you’re still hungry. They start bouncing you up and down. Yeah, still hungry, you say. They strip you down and wipe your butt with an cold wet wipe. Hungry, people, I’m hungry, you scream. And that’s not the feeding end! So they take a blanket and pin your arms to your side and bounce you faster and harder. You resort to the lung-emptier scream and they start shushing in your ear, like that’s the answer to all your problems. Like maybe if we started shushing at all those starving kids in Africa we could solve world hunger. They are SOOO not getting it and you’ve nearly sprained your vocal chords by the time they finally offer you a couple ounces of milk.

Seriously, we can be such imbeciles.

My first two boys would cry louder with each of our attempts to calm them down until we finally remembered about feeding them. They’d latch on and suck furiously and sit there swearing at me under their breath.

The thing with Leo is that he’ll ask for food a couple times but if I’m too busy with the other boys, he just gives up and falls asleep.* It’s like he’s too polite to ask again. Or maybe he’s just confident I’ll get around to it sometime so he’ll just patiently wait. Or…is he playing the martyr? Trying to gain our sympathies by quietly starving to death like friggin’ Gandhi? Is he being passive aggressive, slowly building up my guilt so that when he finally pulls rank and asks for a brand new Tesla for his sixteenth birthday I’ll yell, “YES, OF COURSE YES! HAVE A TESLA! HAVE FIVE TESLAS! AND HERE—TAKE THIS DEED TO OUR HOUSE!! AND ALSO BOTH MY KIDNEYS!”